Pawn Errant
by LunaSphere
Summary: A brief what-if, considering Duck as the raven-princess.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I'm trying to get back into PT writing mode but having a hard time with ideas. So far, this is the only thing I've really managed to finish. In part inspired by **Manda-chan**'s Beneath Black Feathers and its role-reversal. I thought I'd try to explore what a raven!Duck might look like. I'm afraid she doesn't seem very *Duck* anymore...

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_Cuckoos_, the old man laughed, _will steal the nest of other birds, eat their offspring into starvation.  
But a Raven, when desperate, may steal even a duckling and dye her feathers in his own black blood_.

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She took one scarlet tipped finger and pressed it against the pulse at his neck, as he stood stock still, captured by the jewel-hard glint of her sapphire eyes. "Straight from the heart," she smiled, feeling his blood pulse beneath her finger. And then it was just the scarlet fingernail, and not the softness of her finger against his skin, a scratch, a slight welt, as she traced her nail down his neck, down his chest, and stopped above his heart.

"I have a quest for you, my knight."

* * *

She had appeared before him like a living flame, her skirt of red and orange scraps that flared about her like tongues of fire, covered with the most delicate black lace (_where there is smoke_, Fakir's disjointed thoughts clamored as the lace splayed out around the spinning scarlet) as she spun towards him on her toe-shoes. Her long fiery hair fanned around her and she danced, flame within flame, a vision in red like the eye of a raven. But it was her eyes, blue, unforgiving, that burned the hottest, like the icy blue eye of a candle flame.

Blood. Raven feathers. _His mother's face half covered by strands of her dark hair, by trails of her bright blood._ He saw raven claws arching in her dance, her fingers curved like wicked talons._ His father's eyes plucked- _He trembled in fear, his knees buckling, and he knelt before her as a knight to his lady.

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"A raven besieged our kingdom, trapped my father in a tower. Won't you free him?" she whispered in his ear. And he saw himself as he had always desperately wished to be, and yet had never been. He felt the pull of a hundred thousand stories, of endless adventures, of dragons defeated, kingdoms won, monsters vanquished, the prince saved. He thirsted for her words, half drunk on dreams, on desire. "Your heart is the key to the tower. Unlock the tower door. Give him your heart."

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"O flame of my eye, O beloved daughter," her father crowed. "Bring me the knight's heart. I remember the taste of his blood from long ago." And then her ravenous father laughed and she flinched, for his laughter always meant pain. "His own blood made me, so long ago, his own blood gave me life so long ago. If I drink it now, surely it well set me free from this infernal cage. I will drink his writer's blood strained through generations, I will tear in two his knighted body. Lure him to me, with a story, with a quest."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Just to let you know, I have no idea where I'm going with this. I didn't even think I'd continue it because I was out of ideas and at a dead end, which is how I feel after writing this continuation too. If I can mentally wrestle out the rest of the details of this universe though (Mythos, as always, is giving me a hard time...and you know, the plot...), I'd like to be able to make it into a long fic.

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_Once upon a time, there was a monstrous tyrant; only his curiosity made him human. Each night the princess told him an unfinished tale and so continued to live to see the dawn, for a thousand and one nights._

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The redsilk of her skirt crushed beneath her knees as she collapsed beside his body. _He was so still—why was he so still?_

"No," she whispered, tracing a blood red nail down his throat, feeling the barest quiver of a pulse, the shallowest of breath. _It wasn't supposed to be this way! She didn't think— _

"Foolish daughter," her father crowed, "You're as mindless as a flame. What did you think would happen when you lured him to me?"

"What's happened to him?" she asked, her voice whisper-soft and full of fear for questioning him was always a dubious enterprise.

And time stopped. One shadow stepped out of another, smiled at her, opened a portable writing desk, withdrew a sheaf of papers, and said, "His blood slowly turned to ink, he wrote himself into a story." He looked at the fallen boy, "Inexperienced" he sniffed. "But now comes the interesting part, What will you do little duck—oops! I mean raven—, to save him?"

"Can I save him?" she asked, the blue of her jewel-hard eyes softening almost imperceptibly before hardening again with a glint of fear at the thought of her father hearing her words.

"Give me your heart," the shadow-man laughed, "Is that what you thought I'd say? No, only that silly raven you think is your father wants those. Don't worry he can't hear us. No," he continued, smiling and showing her all his teeth,"I don't want hearts, I just want a story. It gets so boring where I am. Each night, you must find me a story, new and untold if you want him to live to the morning."


End file.
